Who needs the OT

The Old Testament.
Well many say it is essential to understanding the New. But there are some who think the NT can stand alone. You know a lot of the stories in the OT are just stories. There is metaphorical significance and little historical significance. Abraham might be a fictional character? When I heard that, I was blown away.

Well, I'm certainly no expert on the Old Testament, but I know one thing. You don't have a hope in Hell of understanding most of The Book of Revelation without knowing the bulk of the Old Testament. I learned that the hard way.

I have little knowledge of both the Old and New Testaments, but from my brief forays into the Christian Church I understood that they are contradictory in essence so many dismiss the OT in favour of the New.

Raph said:

Well, I'm certainly no expert on the Old Testament, but I know one thing. You don't have a hope in Hell of understanding most of The Book of Revelation without knowing the bulk of the Old Testament. I learned that the hard way.

Click to expand...

What are some elements/parts in the OT that pertain to The Book of Revelation?

Ecclesiastes said:

Raph said:

Well, I'm certainly no expert on the Old Testament, but I know one thing. You don't have a hope in Hell of understanding most of The Book of Revelation without knowing the bulk of the Old Testament. I learned that the hard way.

Click to expand...

What are some elements/parts in the OT that pertain to The Book of Revelation?

Click to expand...

Daniel 2 and 7 for example.

Most of the Old Testament is stolen stories of the previous global predominate religion: Paganism. Just as aspects of the Abahamic faiths populate the world now, at one point polytheistic faiths of Paganism predominated the world. Paganism, like Christianity, can be broken down into different denominations to their respects accordingly to differentiation of specifications. The easiest three examples of this are The Flood (which hails from the ancient Sumerians), The Burning Bush (as symbolic for the Tree Of Life/Tree Of Knowledge in Paganism) and the story of David & Goliath, which is absolutely a metaphor for the faith of the new conquering the faith of the old.

To put this into perspective for you in the Middle East as to how confused and disorganized everything has gotten: Isis attacked and destroyed the historical monument in Iraq of the Temple Of Nimrud because they declared it to be a heretical abomination to their newlyfound Abahamic faith of Islam. Or to put in in plain English: The terrorist group abolished their bloodline ancient great temple to their hereditary Pagan worship, because it was heretical to Islam...and if that doesn't seem delusional, than I don't know what does...

I also find the Book Of Job to be the most honest and humane book in the entire bible, as a personal opinion and preference. I find it humbling. I also find a certain comfort in it. It's humanizing, in a way...

The Old Testament interests me more because of its historical significance. Scholars, need the Old Testament. People that do historical research. The kinds of people who are still wondering what happened to the Spear Of Destiny and several other holy relics. It's an intellectual acquired taste.

The New Testament interests me very little. Revelation, perhaps the most.
Much of what's considered to be within the realm of mundane societal standards and morality, interests me very little.
And I have even less interest in current world affairs because it only seems to surmount to the hollow, shallow, simpleness of political affairs and societal division rather than societal unification.

In truth, I should hope that religiously sworn enemies would agree to disagree and shake hands and actually get to know each other as people, differences aside, but for cultural purposes and to say that you learned something you didn't know before from the other perspective, on the approaching days and times wherein perhaps an asteroid might smack into the Earth again, totally obliterating all life from the planet. I think, or I should hope to think that, the passionate desire that all people hold in their hearts should be willing to be humbled enough to create a true peace, even for just a brief moment under such circumstances. That is the least of my hopes for a Utopia. Even if there is nonjudgmental global peace and understanding for all of a collectively 10 minutes, that will be enough for me to smile and say that me being alive to see that was worth me choosing to continue to be alive.

Incola
You've certainly raised the bar for this thread. I feel out of my depth already.

Well then, I will jump in to defend the Bible, just for the record here.


Understand that most of the media, schools, government agencies, scientific institutions, and (ignorant) people have rejected America's Christian heritage and the Bible's authority, historicity, and principles that existed for over 300 years.  Starting in the late 19th century and accelerating in the past 50 years, the Bible, and particularly Genesis, has been assaulted and deemed contradictory and historically unreliable.  The combination of discrediting the Bible and purging Christianity from the public arena has had a huge impact on our nation's beliefs, practices - and culture. Many now believe as fact the secular world view and values that they've been taught. Sadly, even many Christians today have swallowed the pill.

Much of what is read, heard, and repeated today, like evolution negating creationism, the great flood being local, Noah's ark and the animals being an impossibility, the tower of Babel being a fable, the Israelite exodus never happening, Joshua's conquering of the Canaanite lands never happening, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah being another fable, and King David's empire never existing, is too readily accepted as fact.  The problem is not only that our country and millions of people have been misguided and gotten on the wrong side of God and Christianity, but they have done so based upon a severe lack of evidence and sound reasoning.  It seems that someone has only to write a book, post a YouTube video, or show a documentary TV special that shows an anti-biblical perspective, and the masses eat it up as truth - not because it's proven as such, but because its scandalously interesting, popular thinking, or a justification for exercising one's own freedom rather than submitting to God and his moral values.  If one cares to look, there are books, articles, and videos addressing all of these common, oft repeated accusations - and the answers are overwhelmingly adequate to affirm the Christian Bible.

It's taken me the past 25 years of studying Christian apologetics to appreciate the impressive amount of historical, scientific, archaeological, textual, and prophetic evidence supporting the Bible's authority, infallible accuracy, and reliability.  The evidence for divine authorship is abundant for anyone seeking the truth.  I understand that no amount of such evidence will change the mind of godless people who prefer a materialistic world view.  But, I encourage all others, whether agnostic, ignorant, non-caring, or misguided believer, to be skeptical of anti-biblical information you read, hear, or see.  From what I've studied and learned, the evidence is stronger than ever before that the Bible is right about everything - as it should be if it is a message given to us by our creator.